Angelique Vied for Favor, Cloverfield, and Unknown Creatures

The human world.

It was the place Angelique longed for most. She would even abandon Hell for it.

"All right, but I have one more condition: no indiscriminate killing of innocents." This was Li Dan's bottom line. There were already plenty of people here courting death; any more random killing would leave the land even more sparsely populated.

"Of course. I'll listen to you."

Angelique agreed readily. To her, promises could be broken whenever she pleased.

Naturally, Li Dan guarded against that. Verbal agreements and written contracts were no different from wastepaper, unless witchcraft or some other power enforced them.

"Your word alone won't do. We need to sign a contract."

"What kind of contract? If you mean the same kind as those demons, I'd rather go back to Hell."

Angelique was shrewd. She longed for the human world, but she did not want to pay for her return by becoming this man's slave. She was a princess of Hell, after all.

"Of course not. Your contract will be different from theirs. You're my queen..."

Angelique did not possess a queen's strength, but she had the potential.

Still, Li Dan felt that she seemed to have invested her talents in the wrong direction, putting everything into seduction. It reminded him of a race called succubi.

"Queen?"

It sounded rather nice. For a moment, Angelique even wondered whether Li Dan had some hidden identity as a king.

Only later did she realize she had been mistaken.

The human world.

Elm Street, Los Angeles.

The nightmare had ended, but those who woke in the classroom were badly shaken. Their teacher's death made them realize that this had been no dream.

Besides, no dream could have been so lucid and vivid.

The scenes of the preacher hunting them down were still fresh